John Prescott may gnash his teeth, but Tony Blair has the right instinct in wanting to give schools more freedom. It is only frustrating that it has taken so long to reach what Mr Blair yesterday described as a “pivotal moment”. In aiming to return schools to a state of autonomy not unlike the grant-maintained status that Labour abolished eight years ago, the White Paper does represent a pivotal break with Labour’s centralising past. And it goes further, by creating incentives for charities, business institutions and even private schools to take over failing institutions. There should be no underestimating the depth of hostility to this that lurks on the backbenches, in the teaching unions, some local education authorities and in parts of Whitehall.

The Government is right to want to award significant autonomy to schools, to open up the sector to other providers and to empower parents to change the direction of mediocre schools. Pupils have only one chance at education. Those who accuse the Government of being too hasty to build on the city academy model must ask themselves whether today’s children should have to wait while the educational establishment indulges in yet more ideological wrangling.

Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State, will need all her resolve to implement these ideas. Last week’s report by the Chief Inspector of Schools sounded a warning about the institutional inertia that has dogged reforms. It found that one school in four offers “nothing better than mediocrity”, despite a decline in outright failure, and noted a lack of urgency by schools even after so many years of ministerial exhortation. The White Paper seeks to reduce the role of local education authorities (LEAs), but it does not dismantle them entirely. So LEAs may well seek to discourage schools from seeking autonomy, just as they did under John Major.

The city academies programme has exposed an unholy alliance between some LEAs and teaching unions, which have rightly sensed a threat to national pay bargaining. Their rush to criticise city academies that have been open for barely two years makes the concept even more deserving of support. It has become fashionable to argue that teaching must be left to schools. But while ministers are right to give headteachers more autonomy, they will not be doing their duty unless they also give them power to deal with the National Union of Teachers. Decentralisation must not mean that ministers can wash their hands of schools where the staff room persists in doling out the mediocre. Headteachers must be able to set the flexible terms and conditions that the unions so dislike.

Mr Prescott and his ilk purport to fear that a two-tier education system would result if good schools expand, consigning poorer children to sink schools while middle-class children snatch the best places. But this is already a reality in many areas. The way to drive standards up is to encourage popular schools to expand. Mr Prescott is also apparently dismayed at moves to promote a “public school ethos”. Does he loathe this even more than the “knife-you-first” ethos that has increasingly come to define his beloved compehensive ideal?

“I want us to lift our ambitions”, the Prime Minister said yesterday. This is the right message to the awkward squad. It is late in the day, but the mission is honourable: a generation of pupils awaits.